‘Jersey Shore’ Stars Say Season Five Shows ‘Lighter Side’

New season, which premieres Thursday at 10 p.m. ET on MTV, finds the ‘Shore’ gang getting back to basics.By James Montgomery

Ronnie, Mike “The Situation,” Vinny, and Pauly D of “Jersey Shore”

Photo: MTV News

If there’s an underlying plotline to the fifth season of MTV’s “Jersey Shore” — which premieres Thursday at 10 p.m. — it may very well be “There’s no place like home.”

That’s according to the “Shore” stars themselves, who told MTV News that, unlike their Italian holiday, the new season of the show is short on infighting, head-butting, vehicular mishaps, ill-fated hookups, malicious dog-poop capers and drama of all varieties and long on what they’ve come to be known for — namely, partying.

“You’re gonna see a lighter side of us in Jersey,” Ronnie assured us. “We have a lot more fun as compared to Italy. People were fighting, running heads into walls, bottles being thrown — it was just a lot of drama. Jersey is going to be a lot more fun.”

“You’ll actually see how much we miss Jersey. We missed it so much, we just hit the ground running,” added Pauly D, who’s already gone on record as saying season five is his “best.” “The second we got back from Italy, we went straight to Jersey and just had fun with it.”

Part of that fun involved getting back to basics — the kinds of things that were tough to come by in Italy and core tenets that any and all “Jersey Shore” fanatics know by heart.

“Stuff you take for granted on a day-to-day basis, that’s what we wanted to do,” Pauly said. “Haircut, gym, tanning … Vinny was cutting our hair.”

“We wanted easy girls,” Vinny added with a laugh.

Yep, they’re definitely back.

The fifth season of “Jersey Shore” premieres Thursday, January 5, at 10 p.m. ET/PT on MTV. For continuing “Shore” coverage, be sure to check in with MTV’s Remote Control blog.